The Exception
by Natasha09
Summary: Just a small fiction I wrote for the 50:50 competition. Just a little piece on Draco and Astoria. Warning for character death and OOC Draco.


**A/N - This is a one-shot I wrote for the 50:50 Competition with the prompts Draco Astoria and petrichor. I hope you'll like it.**

Every star across the sky seemed to have gone out, like it had stopped emitting light, or rather reflecting it. Rain was falling hard on the ground and on his face, mixing with the tears on his face. He was sitting on the marshy ground, an empty bottle of firewhiskey next to him. He had the mixed desire of refilling it and of throwing it but he couldn't either, he just didn't seem to have the energy to do anything. He wanted, no, he needed to get out of his head, his body, just wanted to be anyone else but him. His heart was constricting painfully inside his chest, agonizing him, torturing him, and all he wanted was for it to stop.

Three days. That's all it took for thirteen years to fall apart. He remembered, vividly, everyday, every moment he spent with Astoria. The first time he really looked into her warm, determined eyse, he'd known that she was like him but so much better than him. She had the same thirst for recognition and fame that he had, a long time ago, only she never made the mistakes he did. Not to say she didn't make mistakes, far from it, but somehow they weren't as damaging or horrible his were.

He remembered their first date, he had gone out of his way to impress her, he had brought her flowers, roses, and she had taken them and put them in a vase, and then they had gone out for the dinner. But the hotel was swamped with reservations and so, as a last resort, he had to take her to The Leaky Couldron. They ate something and he made jokes, ones he knew were stupid, and yet, she'd throw her head back and laugh. And the sound of her laughter was so beautiful that he kept acting stupid all night. He even walked her back to her house and it started raining. But, she didn't want to apparate, no she told him she loved the rain, and the smell of dust after it rained. And so he loved it too, the smell of dust after rain was something he associated with Astoria.

She had the power to turn him into a lovesick idiot, like the ones in muggle movies, not that he would know. He had never seen muggle movies, until she took him to watch one. He had acted uninterested throughout the movie, but the truth was that he had loved it, of course, he never uttered a word of it to anyone, it was their secret, theirs to know and keep.

It was after their marriage that be found out that she hated roses and only ever kept the ones he had given her. She told him that the first time she had made watch the muggle movie, was the first time she has seen it too. She also told him how much she hated wizarding restaurants, so they only ever went to muggle ones. They would wear muggle clothes under their robes while leaving their houses, but later they would remove their robes and eat at a small muggle diner they both liked.

After a lot of interaction with muggles, Draco realised that they weren't very different from wizards fundamentally, and although wasn't overly fond of them like the Weasley's, he beared them. He was even polite with them while she was friendly.

She changed him, without even wanting to and he never did it for anyone but her. They only watched movies together, only went to the diner when it was just them and he would bring her roses anyway.

But now, it was just him. She was gone. She was never going to come back. She had died. Died giving birth to their second child and he couldn't do anything. She was gone and he hadn't, that wasn't supposed to happen, they were supposed to live and die together. Yet, she had left him alone and he wanted to die, but be couldn't, not when he had two children to take care of.

He remembered once, on a night like this, when they were standing in the rain, it had occurred to him that he did everything he never even thought he'd do, with her. She was an exception to almost all his rules.


End file.
